The passing of Elie Weisel, and so many other Survivors recently, has renewed that gnawing responsibility deep within. Others will and already have eulogized my teacher much better than I ever could. Michael Berenbaum's excellent piece (http://tinyurl.com/jnrpl2u ) alluded to it, but the central theme missing in much of the recounting of his magnificent contributions to humanity was his clear understanding that the memory keeper's road was narrowing, and that the elusive concepts he so eloquently taught us all: memory, consciousness, history and continuity, would soon shift from his primary responsibility, to ours.
And by ours, I mean yours, mine and any member of my generation, the last generation, to work, to play with, and to know the Survivor community intimately. My generation, let's call us those over 40, were the last to stand side by side with Survivors; to call them friends, parents, grandparents and colleagues. In my years at the Shoah Foundation, and later, as the Director of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, I shared offices, attended board meetings, laughed, loved and argued with Survivors on a daily basis. Our lives were enmeshed, inexorably together; my work tied up in their past. I am likely the last to, upon learning that my soon-to-be husband's grandparents met in college, remarked without an ounce of irony "I didn't know grandparents went to college". I was 24.
If you will allow the indulgence for a moment, today I am thinking of our dear colleagues, of blessed memory. Of Fred Diament, the fire-brand ex-president of the LA Holocaust Museum, who saved the life of Elie Weisel when he arrived in Auschwitz; of Jona Goldrich, whom we just lost last week, and who, in addition to being a philanthropic leader of the Los Angeles Jewish community, also changed the landscape of real estate in Southern California; of Cornelius Loen, who drove a snack truck well into his 80's and spent the late afternoons, Monday through Thursday, in the LAMOTH's library, patiently waiting for his wife, Masha (my secretary and also a Survivor) to get off work to drive her home; of Sigi Hart, whose big booming laugh and excellent German and Hebrew, got me out of more than one translation mess. Its stories of their childhood, their life after the war, and their urgent asides to me to remember, that echo in my mind.
My generation's life alongside the Survivor community was sometimes messy, and complicated, but also beautiful and full of surprises. My baby shower, planned by the Survivor women of Los Angeles who for one afternoon, suspended their usual squabbles to make cakes and salads ("Just the way you like them") for my friends. The time when I, nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, suggested they consider an exhibition slate for the coming year that included "The Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals, an exhibit on the abuse of Jehovah's Witnesses during the Holocaust, and a photographic retrospective on Tuol Sleng (the infamous death camp modeled after the Nazi death camps by the murderous Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge in Cambodia). To my shock, the vote was unanimous, the slate passed. I shouldn't have been surprised. It was I who did not understand then, that they were already planning for the day, when they would not be at the table to approve the direction in which we were taking their story.
I understand it now. Though, after 25 years of the work, I still find the task daunting.
My generation is the last to hear details, not always disclosed in video taped interviews or on TV, but with bent heads together, over a book, or working late in an office, or over a quick lunch at a diner between meetings. "This reminds me of my grandmother's soup", or "Did I ever tell you about...?” My generation is the last to hear the question: "What will you do when I'm gone?" not in an academic or philosophical sense, but in a real-time moment of genuine interest and concern. Indeed, what will we do when they are gone? I know that my dedicated and remarkable colleagues who daily break new ground in this arena will continue to collect, and preserve their history, while making it as relevant as possible to future generations (sadly, not hard given the rise of global Anti-Semitism and the American political landscape of today).
There have been incredible strides in education, digital humanities, and storytelling. Schools, colleges and universities across the world have created innovative ways in which to explain that which can never truly be understood, to learn a history that is in many ways impossible to comprehend. This mission is not only for those members of the Academe, or those of us that work in Jewish history museums and archives. It is up to my whole generation of all ethnic and religious backgrounds to explain to the ones that will come after. Soon, our safety net, our blanket, our anchors will not be there to ground us. We will have to go it alone, and we owe it to them, to do it with as much dignity, grace, accuracy and understanding as we can muster. My generation, the last generation, has been given this great gift. But as with all great gifts, it comes with great responsibility.
Who's with me?